Adorned
by bleargh
Summary: (SPIKE/XANDER) "You're a sap, you know that?" he murmured, knowing full well that this was the pot calling the kettle sentimental.


TITLE: "Adorned" (1/1)  
AUTHORS: mcee & Tara Blue  
EMAILS: mcee@fangy.net & blucast9@hotmail.com  
BETA: Mad Poetess - THANK YOU!  
RATING: R  
PAIRING: Spike/Xander  
SUMMARY: "You're a sap, you know that?" he murmured, knowing full well that this was the pot calling the kettle sentimental.  
  
* * *  
  
  
  
  
"Spike?" Whispered.  
  
Stir. "Mmngh."  
  
"Spike."  
  
"Mmmmwhat."  
  
"What's another word for 'tasty'?"  
  
Groan. "'Succulent'." Shift.  
  
"Thanks. Go back to sleep."  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Nothing. Go back to sleep. And... don't move."  
  
"What--?" Spike heard a plastic squeaking sound and a soft 'pop', then a terrible smell assaulted his senses. He wrinkled his nose, eyes still too heavy to open.   
  
The smell was followed by a wet sensation on his back, and he became conscious of the fact that Xander was seated straddling his thighs. One warm hand was wrapped around his hip, holding him still. Spike shivered as the felt tip--he was just awake enough to identify the smell of permanent marker--stroked over a particularly sensitive spot on his spine.  
  
Immediately, the marker was lifted and set aside, and Xander petted him back into a boneless sprawl on the bed.  
  
"What're you doing?"  
  
"Nothing. Shhh. Still." That plastic 'pop' again, then the marker was back. Spike lay silent beneath Xander's touch, ruthlessly suppressing the urge to arch and shiver and squirm as the wet tip trailed over his skin. Each time the vampire seemed about to shiver, Xander lifted the marker tip and soothed him back into pliancy.  
  
"Spike?"  
  
"Mmmh?"  
  
"What's another word for 'dazzle'?"  
  
"Uh, 'radiant'. I guess."  
  
"Okay. Thanks."  
  
"Are you... are you writing on me?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Spike was about to protest hotly when it occured to him that it was a pretty cool thing to do. He tried to crane his neck back to see without moving the rest of his body. "What are you writing? Better be vulgar."  
  
Xander reached up and gently swatted the back of Spike's head. "Down. And be still, or I won't tell you and it's not like you'll ever be able to find out, with the whole mirror thing you people have going."  
  
Spike immediately dropped back onto the pillow. He turned his head to the side so he could just see Xander from the corner of his eye. "I'm down. I'm still. So, is it?"  
  
"Is it what?" Xander leaned closer to the broad expanse of pale skin, brow furrowed as he concentrated on writing in as straight a line as possible.  
  
"Vulgar?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well, what is it, then?"  
  
"It's..." Xander trailed off, and felt the blush rising to his cheeks. "It's a list."  
  
Spike felt Xander squirm slightly against his ass. Ordinarily he could've smelled what was going on in his lover's head as well, but the room was already permeated with the thick scent of their earlier lovemaking, which made any type of mind-reading impossible. Spike breathed in a lungful of the warm air and closed his eyes again, getting comfortable. "A list of what, pet?" he asked sleepily, although he could definitely feel himself--every part of himself--awaken.  
  
"Of... of... words." Xander blushed harder, then bent his head over Spike's back and began writing again. "Of words that remind me of you."  
  
Spike blinked, then ran over the exchanges that had occurred while he was still half asleep. Tasty. Succulent. Dazzle. Radiant.  
  
A quiet, "Oh."   
  
They stayed silent for a moment, with only the muffled sound of the felt tracing his skin, and Xander's calm, intent breathing.  
  
Spike wiggled his butt, never one to be able to stay still for long. Xander gave him another gentle smack, this time on his bare ass. "Still, I said, or this is going to be a mess."  
  
"And what, pray tell, would those words be?" Spike kept his voice even and amused, but inside he felt himself going all soft, like the big ol' girlie pile of mush he really was. Wouldn't do to let that show, though. Not yet. Idly he wondered where else Xander would want to decorate him.  
  
"Uh... well, radiant. And succulent. And, um, sensuous, beautiful, tough, gentle, dazzling... Um, yeah. Like that."  
  
That was nowhere near a complete list, Spike knew. Given that, when he'd woken up, Xander was writing just below his shoulderblades, and now he'd reached the lower half of his back. But the abbreviated list was enough to send his mind into embarassingly soft and mushy places.  
  
Xander bit at his lip and studied Spike's restful face, the tip of the marker hovering over the small of the vampire's back. He couldn't tell what Spike was thinking, and it was driving him moderately insane. The feeling was disarmingly familiar, however, and so Xander just smirked and switched markers, uncapping the green one. He scooted down Spike's legs for better access and bent over his work again.  
  
Spike went rigid and squeaked. "Ack! Hair! Tickles!"  
  
Xander blew a stray curl out of his eye but ignored him otherwise. "Quit squirming."  
  
The green ink went smoothly onto the skin at the base of Spike's back, spreading a little at the edges along the faint skin imperfections that were usually invisible. The colour stood out against the lines of black, making the otherwise unremarkable green seem vibrant. Slowly, carefully, Xander wrote one word after another, moving down. Upon running out of back, he extended his list down one butt cheek, then down the other. When he reached the tops of Spike's thighs, he sat up, capped the green marker, and picked up a blue one.  
  
Spike turned his head to watch the boy's movements. "Where'd the markers come from?"  
  
Xander shot him a beaming smile. "Bought them special."  
  
Spike twitched and bit his lower lip in a huge effort not to just flip over and jump on the boy. He trained his eyes back to the colourful swirls adorning his skin. "You sure have a lot to say..." he said softly, trying not to sound as touched as he felt.  
  
"I might have repeated myself a couple of times." Xander bent over the back of Spike's right thigh, working his way towards the hollow of the vampire's knee.  
  
"Only a couple?"  
  
"Well, I think 'beautiful' is in there twice. And maybe 'fuckable', too. But I guess they bore repeating at least once, don't you think?"  
  
Spike smiled and brushed the toes of his free foot against Xander's thigh. He closed his eyes again, folding both arms under his head, focusing on the cold feel of the marker now going down his calf. "You're a sap, you know that?" he murmured, knowing full well that this was the pot calling the kettle sentimental.  
  
"Yeah. Do you mind?"  
  
"No."  
  
Xander pressed a kiss against Spike's heel, just below a final word etched in blue. "You sure? It doesn't mess with your Big Bad vibes or anything?"  
  
Spike pried an eye open and turned his head just enough to see Xander grinning up at him from a crouch next to his foot. "No. It doesn't. You going to do the other leg?"  
  
Xander crawled back up his body and started again on Spike's left thigh, this time in orange. "The other leg, the front, any little piece of flesh you can spare." Scribble. Then shyly, "I think I'd need many more Spikes to do this properly." He didn't look up, intently avoiding whatever look Spike was throwing his way, and spelled 'graceful' on the soft canvas. Spike shivered beneath his hands, little ripples running up and down his skin.  
  
"Um, Spike?"  
  
"Yeah?" Spike's voice sounded soft, tender.  
  
"Is 'luminescent' spelled l-u-m-i-n-e-s-c-e-n-t?"  
  
"Mm-hm."  
  
"Okay. Thanks."  
  
Xander carefully shaped out the letters along the crease beneath the round curve of Spike's ass, then down.  
  
Resplendant.  
  
Vicious.  
  
Lurid.  
  
Imaginative.  
  
Curious.  
  
Sensuous.  
  
"Oops. Repeated another one." Xander ran his finger over the word, caressing it, careful not to smudge the moist ink.  
  
Provocative. Obscene. Devoted. Demonstrative.  
  
Xander had reached the bottom of Spike's left leg. He looked up the length of his lover's body, admiring the lines of words that ran down from the nape of his neck. Black, green, blue, orange. Beautiful.  
  
"Turn over."  
  
Spike immediately did as he was told and docilely flipped onto his back, settling back onto the warm linen. He smiled at the sight of his boyfriend, naked skin illuminated by the dim light of the bedside lamp, his hands covered in stray ink marks. He saw Xander's eyes widen excitedly at the sight of a blank slate, and the boy licked at his lips, reaching next to him for a new marker.  
  
Red words stringed into a line following Spike's collarbones. The marker streaked the skin almost expertly by now, and the words just came to Xander effortlessly. Upon reaching the skin just above the vampire's nipples, Xander paused, then skipped over it to continue writing. Spike looked down at the blank space in the middle of his chest and arched his scarred eyebrow inquisitively. "Why the space?"  
  
"Got something in mind for it."  
  
He seemed uninclined to say more, and so Spike just nodded and watched as Xander carefully made two columns down his stomach to the swells of his hipbones.  
  
Spike hadn't noticed how aroused he had become until Xander's chest brushed against the tip of his erection. Spike bit his lip, unwilling to interrupt the boy's creativity. Xander forged on, purposely ignoring the rising flesh until it poked him in the chin. He smiled and dropped a soft kiss on the cool skin before continuing his descent. Spike gnawed at the inside of his cheek and cursed himself for teaching the boy so well. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, letting the smell of sex and ink soothe his senses, feed his patience.  
  
A faint 'click' as the red marker was recapped, then the faint pop as another was uncapped. The sound was followed by another wave of that too-strong smell and the feel of cool lines being traced down his left leg. Cracking an eyelid and lifting his head, Spike looked past his burgeoning erection to where Xander was carefully working over his knee and down his shin in purple. One final word sketched over Spike's ankle was followed by another of those whisper-soft kisses being placed on the arch of his foot. Spike gasped, sucking the air in through his teeth in a drawn out hiss, and curled his toes in an effort to hold on to his control. But he kept his eyes open this time; the sight of Xander, hair falling into his eyes, brow creased in concentration as he very carefully formed one word after another, was far too perfect to shut out.  
  
Xander reached over for another colour and frowned as he realised the only one left that he hadn't used was yellow. Far too pale against Spike's skin. He considered this for a moment, then took up the first marker he'd used. The black one.  
  
Cap in his teeth, he began again where he'd left off, working his way down Spike's right leg. Black ink made the pale hair dusting the vampire's upper thigh visible and ran slightly in the tiny, tiny creases of his skin, turning the words into tiny spidery things. One final word at Spike's ankle, then that sweet kiss, and Xander crawled back up Spike's body until his face was level with the blank spot he'd left on his lover's chest.  
  
Spike blinked heavily at him, a soft smile grazing his lips. Unconsciously, his hips rose to meet Xander's, lengths finally rubbing up against each other. The boy ignored it still and spat the plastic cap away to lean in closer to Spike's chest.  
  
"So what's the finishing touch, luv?" Spike managed to get out in a breathless version of his usual cocky drawl.  
  
"You'll see," Xander dismissed absently. The black marker ran over the muscled flesh, this time forming much larger letters spelling out the shortest word yet.  
  
MINE.  
  
Xander's hand-writing had gotten a little messier in the last minutes, largely due to the languid way Spike was staring down his body at him.  
  
Spike looked down at his chest and back up at Xander. "Yours, eh?"  
  
Xander didn't answer. One more thing and he could let Spike charm the wits out of him. Xander threw the black marker over his shoulder, cap forgotten, and reached for the red one by Spike's thigh. He brought the tip over Spike's left pectoral, at the end of 'MINE', and drew a big red heart over the vampire's unbeating one, taking up as much space as he could without writing over the words. Getting both halves to be symmetric was harder than it looked, and Spike watched as his lover's tongue stuck out in the corner of his mouth, just enough to make Spike want to rise up and taste it with his own.  
  
Ah, what the hell. He'd been a good vampire as long as could be expected.  
  
The marker had barely lifted from Spike's chest when he lurched up, locked his arms around Xander's neck, and yanked him down to lie flush against him. Xander's squawk of objection was lost against Spike's lips, his breath stolen from him by the tongue sliding hotly onto his.  
  
Long moments later, when Spike finally let Xander peel their skin apart, Spike looked down at Xander's chest and smiled at the smudged 'MINE' imprinted backwards onto his skin.  
  
Spike grinned, then pushed Xander over so that the boy flopped flat on his back in the bed. Spike quickly rose above him, swinging a leg over to straddle Xander's hips. Without tearing his gaze from those big, dark come-fuck-me eyes, Spike groped around in the sheets until he found one of the markers. He pulled the cap off, holding it between his teeth as he bent over Xander's chest. His handwriting--the penmanship taught to him by some long-dead schoolmaster--was more ornate than Xander's; with a showy flourish of his left hand, Spike spelled out neat letters over Xander's rib cage, over the fainter mirrored word.  
  
SPIKE'S.  
  
  
  
~end~ 


End file.
